An aspect of successful and restful sleep is individual sleep comfort. Medical research suggests that sleep deprivation (“sleep debt”) can have significant negative impacts on longevity, productivity, and overall mental, emotional, and physical health. Chronic sleep debt has been linked to weight gain and, more specifically, has been observed to not only affect the way the body processes and stores carbohydrates, but has also been observed to alter hormone levels that affect appetite. Moreover, sleep debt may result in irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate, and moodiness, which has led some researchers to suggest a link between sleep debt and worksite accidents, traffic incidents, and general afternoon inattentiveness. Furthermore, sleep disorders have been linked to hypertension, increased stress hormone levels, and irregular heartbeat, and additional research has recently suggested that a lack of sleep can affect immune function, resulting in increased susceptibility to illness and disease, e.g., cancer. In all, researchers have now suggested that sleep debt costs the United States $63 billion annually in lost productivity due to these various effects.
To date, one strategy for improving sleep comfort and lowering individual sleep debt has been to incorporate various air-conditioning assemblies into support cushions, such as mattresses and the like. The incorporation of these air-conditioning assemblies into support cushions, however, has often required the use of noisy fans or other similar devices to distribute heated or cooled air toward or away from the support cushions, and has also required a significant amount of electrical power to operate the air-conditioning assemblies. Accordingly, a support cushion that improves sleep comfort and lowers individual sleep debt, without the use of noisy fans or other similar devices and without resulting in a significant consumption of energy, would be both highly desirable and beneficial.